Books: Nature Cure
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Henry Lindlahr >> Nature Cure
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There is certainly no finer tonic than cold water, no more
exhilarating sensation than that produced by the artistic
application of alternating douches and the blitz.
The real cause of this cold-water scare, we believe, is to be found
in the boasting of the veterans. When, with protruding chest and
chin in air, they brag to the newcomers or to their friends about
their heroism and the coolness with which they allow the cold-water
hose to be turned on them, the listener shudders and exclaims: "This
cold water may be all right for you, but it would never do for me."
No doubt, it is this bravado of the initiated that keeps many a
novice from the first plunge into the mysteries of Nature Cure. If
these timid ones only knew what they miss!
Business Versus Cure
From a business point of view it would, perhaps, be better to omit
the cold water altogether. It would certainly be much less trouble;
but then, the rugged honesty of Father Kneipp, the champion of the
cold-water treatment branch of German Nature Cure, has descended
upon his followers and compels them to tell the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, to make use of everything that is likely to
be of benefit to the patient and to effect a real and lasting cure.
Our friends, the osteopaths, have only a pitying smile for our
arduous labors. They ask: "Why fool with cold water and drive
patients away, when pleasant manipulations bring the business?" If
we query in return: "Do your pleasant manipulations cure obstinate
chronic ailments?" They answer: "We do not expect to cure them. The
effort involves too much labor and spoils the reputation of our
work. Not one in a hundred chronics has the patience and
perseverance to be cured. Besides, if a patient comes too long to
the office for treatment he drives others away."
Some of the most successful osteopaths in this city make it a rule
not to treat a patient longer than six weeks or two months.
In a number of cases this may be sufficient to produce marked
primary improvement, but it is not enough to launch the patient into
a healing crisis and, therefore, does not produce a real cure
because it does not remove the underlying causes of the disease. If,
after a while, the latent chronic condition again manifests in
external symptoms, the patient returns for another course of
treatment; he was "cured" so quickly before and thinks he will be
helped again.
In justice to the osteopaths it must be said that we are not
referring to those chronic diseases which are directly caused by
lesions of the spine or other bony structures. If such dislocations
or subluxations be the sole cause of the trouble, their correction
by manipulative treatment may produce a cure within a few weeks.
But notwithstanding the teachings of orthodox osteopathy, the
majority of chronic ailments have their origin in other causes. In
most cases, the existing spinal lesions are themselves the result of
other primary disease conditions which must be removed before the
bony lesions will remain corrected.
The mode of treatment depends upon the object that is to be
accomplished. If it is to make the patient feel better with the
least possible expenditure of time, money, personal effort and
self-control on his part, and the least amount of exertion on the
part of the physician or healer, then osteopathic manipulations or
meta-physical formulas may be in order. But if the object is to cure
actually and permanently a deep-seated chronic disease, all the
methods of the natural treatment, intelligently combined and adapted
to the individual case, will be required in order to accomplish
results.
Pull the Roots
Cutting off their heads does not kill the weeds. The first sign of
improvement in the treatment of a chronic disease does not mean a
cure.
Diagnosis from the Eye, borne out by everyday practical experience,
reveals the fact that symptomatic manifestations of disease are due
to underlying constitutional causes; that the chronic symptoms are
Nature's feeble and ineffectual efforts to eliminate from the system
scrofulous, psoric or syphilitic taints and the disease products
resulting from food and drug poisoning, or to overcome the
destructive effects of surgical mutilations.
An abatement of symptoms is, therefore, not always the sign of a
real and permanent cure. The latter depends entirely on the
elimination of the hereditary and acquired constitutional taints and
poisons.
When, under the influence of natural living and methods of
treatment, the body of the chronic becomes sufficiently purified and
strengthened, a period of marked improvement may set in. All disease
symptoms gradually abate, the patient gains in strength, both
physically and mentally, and he feels as though there was nothing
the matter with him any more.
But the eyes tell a different story. They show that the underlying
constitutional taints have not been fully eliminated--the weeds have
not been pulled up by the roots.
This can be accomplished only by healing crises, by Nature's
cleansing and healing activities in the form of inflammatory and
feverish processes; anything short of this is merely preliminary
improvement, "training for the fight," but not the cure.
When you order a suit of clothes from your tailor, you do not take
it away from him half-finished; if you do, you will have an
unsatisfactory garment.
No more should you interfere with your cure after the first signs of
improvement. Continue until you have thoroughly eliminated from your
system the hidden constitutional taints and the drug poisons which
have been the cause of your troubles. After that you can paddle your
own canoe; right living and right thinking will then be sufficient
to maintain perfect health and strength, physically, mentally and
morally.
Is the Chronic Patient to Be Left to His Fate
Because Allopathy Says He Is Incurable?
Frequently we have been severely criticised by our friends, our
coworkers or our patients for accepting certain seemingly hopeless
chronic cases. They exclaim:
"You know this man has locomotor ataxy and that woman is an
epileptic: you certainly do not expect to cure them," or, "Doctor,
don't you think it injures the institution to have that
dreadful-looking person around? He is nothing but skin and bones and
surely cannot live much longer."
Sometimes open criticism and covert insinuation intimate that our
reasons for taking in incurables are mercenary.
If we should dismiss today those of our patients who, from the
orthodox and popular point of view, are considered incurable, there
would not remain ten out of a hundred; and yet our total failures
are few and far between. Many such seemingly hopeless cases have
come for treatment month after month, in several instances for a
year or more, apparently without any marked advance; yet today they
are in the best of health.
Yes, it is hard work and frequently thankless work to deal with
these patients. It would be much easier, much more remunerative and
would bring more glory to confine ourselves to the treatment of
acute diseases, for it is there that Nature Cure works its most
impressive miracles. On the other hand, to achieve the seemingly
impossible, to prove what Nature Cure can accomplish in the most
stubborn chronic cases, sustains our courage and is its own
compensation.
The word chronic in the vocabulary of the "Old School" of medicine
is synonymous with "incurable." This is not strange; since the
medical and surgical symptomatic treatment of acute diseases creates
the chronic conditions, it certainly cannot be expected to cure
them. If, by continued suppression, Nature's cleansing and healing
efforts have been perverted into chronic disease conditions, the
following directions are given in the regular works on medical
practice:
"When this disease reaches the chronic stage, you can no longer cure
it. You may advise the patient to change climate or occupation. As
for medication, treat the symptoms as they arise."
We know that the symptoms are Nature's healing efforts; when these
are promptly treated, that is, suppressed, it is not surprising that
the chronic does not recover. In fact, it is the treatment which
makes him and keeps him a chronic.
Why Nature Cure Achieves Results
Nature Cure achieves results in the treatment of chronic diseases
because its theories and practices are entirely opposite to those
just described. However, when the Nature Cure physician claims that
he can cure cancer, tuberculosis, epilepsy, paralysis, Bright's
disease, diabetes or certain mental derangements, the regular
physician shows only derision and contempt. He will not even
condescend to examine any evidence in support of our claims.
Since, then, Nature Cure offers to the so-called incurable the only
hope and the only possible means of regaining health, why not give
him a chance? Many times apparently hopeless cases have responded
most readily to our treatment, while more promising ones offered the
most stubborn resistance. Even with the best possible methods of
diagnosis, it is hard to determine just how far the destruction of
vital organs has progressed, or how deeply they have been
impregnated with drug poisons.
Therefore, it is often an impossibility to predict with certainty
just what the outcome will be. This can be determined only by a fair
trial. In the past we have treated many a case that, according to
the rules and precedents of orthodox science, should be dead and
buried long ago; yet these individuals are today alive and in the
best of health.
Every now and then incidents like the following renew our enthusiasm
and our faith in Nature Cure: Recently, we had three new cases, sent
by three former patients who had been under treatment several years
ago. These three had been among the worst cases ever treated in our
institution. When they came to us, one was supposed to be dying with
cancer, the second was in the advanced stages of tertiary syphilis
and the third, a lady, had survived several operations for the
removal of the appendix and the ovaries. At the time she took up our
treatment she had been advised to undergo another operation for the
removal of the uterus.
These incurables had been exceedingly trying. More than once one or
another had quit, discouraged and disgusted, only to return, knowing
that, after all, Nature Cure was their only hope. After they left
us, we lost track of them and often wondered how they were getting
on. Imagine our pleasant surprise when all three were reported by
the newcomers as being in good health. What if it did take months or
even years to produce the desired results? What would have been the
fate of these three patients if it had not been for slow Nature
Cure?
Discouraged patients frequently ask: "Why do others recover so
quickly when I show so little improvement? This cure seems to be all
right for some diseases, but evidently it does not fit my case."
This is defective reasoning. True Nature Cure fits every case
because it includes everything good in natural healing methods. In
stubborn cases Nature Cure is not to blame for the slow and
unsatisfactory results: the difficulty lies in the character and
advanced stage of the disease.
Chapter XXIII
The Treatment of Chronic Diseases
Let us now consider the best methods for producing the healing
crises referred to in the preceding chapters, that is, the best
methods for treating the chronic forms of disease.
We found that acute diseases represent Nature's efforts to purify
and regenerate the human organism by means of inflammatory feverish
processes, while in the chronic condition the system is not capable
of arousing itself to such acute reactions. The treatment must
differ accordingly.
The Nature Cure treatment of acute diseases tends to relieve inner
congestion, to facilitate the radiation of heat and the elimination
of morbid matter and systemic poisons from the body. In this way it
eases and palliates the feverish processes and keeps them below the
danger point without in any way checking or suppressing them.
While our methods of treating acute diseases have a sedative effect,
our treatment of chronic diseases is calculated to stimulate, that
is, to arouse the sluggish organism to greater activity in order to
produce the acute inflammatory reactions or healing crises.
If the unity of diseases as demonstrated in a previous chapter is a
fact in Nature, it must be possible to treat all chronic as well as
all acute diseases by uniform methods, and the natural remedies must
correspond to the primary causes of disease.
The Natural Methods of Treatment
Natural methods of treatment may be divided into two groups:
Those which the patient can apply himself, provided he has been
properly instructed in their correct selection, combination and
application. Those which must be applied by a competent Nature Cure
physician.
To the first group belong diet (fasting), bathing and other water
applications, correct breathing, general physical exercise,
corrective gymnastics, air and sun baths, mental therapeutics.
To the second group belong special applications of the methods
mentioned under group 1, and in addition to these hydropathy,
massage, manipulation, medical treatment in the form of homeopathic
medicines, nonpoisonous herb extracts and the vitochemical remedies,
and most important of all, the right management of healing crises
which develop under the natural treatment of chronic diseases.
Diagnosis
Correct diagnosis is the first essential to rational treatment.
Every honest physician admits that the "Old School" methods of
diagnosis are, to say the least, unsatisfactory and uncertain,
especially in ascertaining the underlying causes of disease.
Therefore we should welcome any and all methods of diagnosis which
throw more light on the causes and the nature of disease conditions
in the human organism.
Two valuable additions to diagnostic science are now offered to us
in osteopathy and in the Diagnosis from the Eye.
Osteopathy furnishes valuable information concerning the connection
between disease conditions and misplacements of vertebrae and other
bony structures, contractions or abnormal relaxation of muscles and
ligaments, and inflammation of nerves and nerve centers.
The Diagnosis from the Eye is as yet a new science, and much remains
to be discovered and to be better explained. We do not claim that
Nature's records in the eye disclose all the details of pathological
tendencies and changes, but they do reveal many disease conditions,
hereditary and acquired, that cannot be ascertained by any other
methods of diagnosis.
Omitting consideration of everything that is at present speculative
and uncertain, we are justified in making the following statements:
The eye is not only, as the ancients said, "the mirror of the soul,"
but it also reveals abnormal conditions and changes in every part
and organ of the body. Every organ and part of the body is
represented in the iris of the eye in a well-defined area. The iris
of the eye contains an immense number of minute nerve filaments,
which through the optic nerves, the optic brain centers and the
spinal cord are connected with and receive impressions from every
nerve in the body. The nerve filaments, muscle fibers and minute
blood vessels in the different areas of the iris reproduce the
changing conditions in the corresponding parts or organs. By means
of various marks, signs, abnormal colors and discolorations in the
iris, Nature reveals transmitted disease taints and hereditary
lesions. Nature also makes known, by signs, marks and
discolorations, acute and chronic inflammatory or catarrhal
conditions, local lesions, destruction of tissues, various drug
poisons and changes in structures and tissues caused by accidental
injury or by surgical mutilations. The Diagnosis from the Eye
positively confirms Hahnemann's theory that all acute diseases have
a constitutional background of hereditary or acquired disease
taints. This science enables the diagnostician to ascertain, from
the appearance of the iris alone, the patient's inherited or
acquired tendencies toward health and toward disease, his condition
in general and the state of every organin particular. Reading
Nature's records in the eye, he can predict the different healing
crises through which the patient will have to pass on the road to
health. The eye reveals dangerous changes in vital parts and organs
from their inception, thus enabling the patient to avert any
threatening disease by natural living and natural methods of
treatment. By changes in the iris, the gradual purification of the
system, the elimination of morbid matter and poisons, and the
readjustment of the organism to normal conditions under the
regenerating influences of natural living and treatment are
faithfully recorded.
This interesting subject will be treated more fully in a separate
volume (~Iridiagnosis,~ published in 1919 by Dr. Lindlahr). In this
connection I shall confine myself to relating briefly the story of
the discovery of this valuable science.
The Story of a Great Discovery
Dr. Von Peckzely, of Budapest, Hungary, discovered Nature's records
in the eye, quite by accident, when a boy ten years of age.
Playing one day in the garden at his home, he caught an owl. While
struggling with the bird, he broke one of its limbs. Gazing straight
into the owl's large, bright eyes, he noticed, at the moment when
the bone snapped, the appearance of a black spot in the lower
central region of the iris, which area he later found to correspond
to the location of the broken leg.
The boy put a splint on the broken limb and kept the owl as a pet.
As the fracture healed, he noticed that the black spot in the iris
became overdrawn with a white film and surrounded by a white border
(denoting the formation of scar tissues in the broken bone).
This incident made a lasting impression on the mind of the future
doctor. It often recurred to him in later years. From further
observations he gained the conviction that abnormal physical
conditions are portrayed in the eyes.
As a student, Von Peckzely became involved in the revolutionary
movement of 1848 and was put in prison as an agitator and
ringleader. During his confinement, he had plenty of time and
leisure to pursue his favorite theory and he became more and more
convinced of the importance of his discovery. After his release, he
entered upon the study of medicine, in order to develop his
important discoveries and to confirm them more fully in the
operating and dissecting rooms. He had himself enrolled as an
interne in the surgical wards of the college hospital. Here he had
ample opportunity to observe the eyes of patients before and after
accidents and operations, and in that manner he was enabled to
elaborate the first accurate Chart of the Eye.
Since Von Peckzely gave his discoveries to the world, many
well-known scientists and conscientious observers in Austria,
Germany and Sweden have devoted their lives to the perfection of
this wonderful science. The regular schools of medicine, as a body,
have ignored and will ignore it, because it discloses the fallacy of
their favorite theories and practices, and because it reveals
unmistakably the direful results of chronic drug poisoning and
ill-advised operations.
In our work we do not confine ourselves to the Diagnosis from the
Eye, but combine with it the diagnostic methods (physical diagnosis)
of the regular school of medicine and the osteopathic diagnosis of
bony lesions, as well as microscopic examinations and chemical
analyses.
Thus any one of these methods supplements and verifies all the
others. In this way only is it possible to arrive at a thorough and
definite understanding of the patient's condition.
The "Key to the Diagnosis from the Eye" outlines with precision the
areas of the iris as they correspond to the various parts of the
body. This colored chart of the iris has been prepared by Dr. H.
Lahn, author of "The Diagnosis From the Eye," and can be obtained
from the Kosmos Publishing Co., 2112 Sherman Ave., Evanston, Ill.
Chapter XXIV
Vitality
In Chapter Four, we named, as the first of the primary causes of
disease, lowered vitality.
What can we do to increase vitality? "Old School" physicians and
people in general seem to think that this can be done by consuming
large quantities of nourishing food and drink and by the use of
stimulants and tonics.
The constant cry of patients is: "Doctor, if you could only
prescribe some good tonic or some food that will give me strength,
then I should be all right! I am sure that is all I need to be
cured."
We fully agree with the patient that he needs more vitality to
overcome disease, but unfortunately this cannot be obtained from
food and drink, from stimulants and tonics.
Vitality, life, life force, whatever we may call it or whatever its
aspect, is not something we can eat and drink. It is independent of
the physical body and of material food. If the body should "fall
dead," as we call it, the life force would continue to act just as
vigorously in the spiritual body, which is the exact counterpart of
the physical organism.
The physical-material body as well as the spiritual-material body
are only the instruments for the manifestation of the life force.
They are no more life itself than the violin is the artist.
But just as the violin must be kept in good condition in order to
enable the artist to draw from it the harmonies of sound, so food
and drink are necessary to keep the physical body in the best
possible condition for the manifestation of vital force. The more
normal our physical and spiritual bodies are in structure and
function, the more harmonious our thought life and emotional life,
the more abundant will be the influx of vital force into the twofold
organism.
This important subject has been treated more fully in Chapter IV.
Ignorance of these simple truths leads to the most serious mistakes.
Physicians and people in general do not stop to think that excessive
eating and drinking tend to rob the body of vitality instead of
supplying it.
The processes of digestion, assimilation and elimination of food and
drink in themselves require a considerable expenditure of vital
force. Therefore all food taken in excess of the actual needs of the
body consumes life force that should be available for other
purposes, for the execution of physical and mental work.
The Romans had a proverb: "Plenus venter non studet libenter"--"A
full stomach does not like to study." The most wholesome food, if
taken in excess, will clog the system with waste matter just as too
much coal will dampen and extinguish the fire in the furnace.
Furthermore, the morbid materials and systemic poisons produced by
impure, unsuitable or wrongly combined foods will clog the cells and
tissues of the body, cause unnecessary friction and obstruct the
inflow and the operations of the vital energies, just as dust in a
watch will clog and impede the movements of its mechanism.
The greatest artist living cannot draw harmonious sounds from the
strings of the finest Stradivarius if the body of the violin is
filled with dust and rubbish. Likewise, the life force cannot act
perfectly in a body filled with morbid encumbrances.
The human organism is capable of liberating and manifesting daily a
limited quantity of vital force, just as a certain amount of capital
in the bank will yield a specified sum of interest in a given time.
If more than the available interest be withdrawn, the capital in the
bank will be decreased and gradually exhausted.
Similarly, if we spend more than our daily allowance of vital force,
"nervous bankruptcy," that is, nervous prostration or neurasthenia
will be the result.
It is the duty of the physician to regulate the expenditure of vital
force according to the income. He must stop all leaks and guard
against wastefulness.
Stimulation by Paralysis
This heading may seem paradoxical, but it is borne out by fact.
Stimulants are poison to the system. Few people realize that their
exhilarating and apparently tonic effects are produced by the
paralysis of an important part of the nervous system.
If, as we have learned, wholesome food and drink in themselves do
not contain and therefore cannot convey life force to the human
body, much less can this be accomplished by stimulants.
The human body has many correspondences with a watch. Both have a
motor or driving mechanism and an inhibitory or restraining
apparatus.
If it were not for the inhibiting balances, the wound watchspring
would run off and spend its force in a few moments. The expenditure
of the latent force in the wound spring must be regulated by the
inhibitory and balancing mechanism of the timepiece.
Similarly, the nervous system in the animal and human organism
consists of two main divisions: the motor or driving and the
inhibitory or restraining mechanisms.
The driving power is furnished by the sympathetic nerves and the
motor nerves. They convey the vital energies and nerve impulses to
the cells and organs of the body, thus initiating and regulating
their activities.
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